by Dan Mitchell | Jul 12, 2015 | Bailouts, Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
I very rarely feel sympathy for the people of Greece. Indeed, events over the past five years have even led me to write that “I hate the Greeks.” I also disparaged the people of Greece by stating on TV that they’ve beentrying to loot and mooch their way through life....
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 10, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, States, Taxation
There’s an old saying that states are the laboratories of democracy. But since I’m a policy wonk, I focus more on the lessons we can learn from the states about public policy. Such as the importance of limiting the destructive nature of taxes. Such as the economic...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 9, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Europe, Government Spending
The European Commission’s data-gathering bureaucracy, Eurostat, has just published a new report on government finances for the region. And with Greece’s ongoing fiscal turmoil getting headlines, this Eurostat publication is worthwhile because it debunks the notion,...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 7, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
When I make speeches about fiscal policy, I oftentimes share a table showing the many nations that have made big progress by enforcing spending restraint over multi-year periods. I then ask audiences a rhetorical question about a possible list of nations that have...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 3, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
Back in 2010, I described the “Butterfield Effect,” which is a term used to mock clueless journalists for being blind to the real story. A former reporter for the New York Times, Fox Butterfield, became a bit of a laughingstock in the 1990s for publishing a series of...
